


Ten Song Strong

by Amasa



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amasa/pseuds/Amasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 10 song challenge, reposted from LJ. In this bunch of drabbles you can expect: dwarves, fighting, Zevran, fuckery, Cullen, mages, METAL MUSIC!!!, random Leiliana, random Wynne, probable spoilers, and too many adjectives. And a bonus drabble for +1 Zevran.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Song Strong

> 1\. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.  
>  2\. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.  
>  3\. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!  
>  4\. Do ten of these, then post them.

1\. [_more human than human; rob zombie_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wB1ay2_pCM)

Electricity; crackles through the air, charges through the fingers, through the veins. Lyrium rushes after it, a long sucking draught of blue-bright power (takes her breath away and) she calls down a glyph hard after it, slams it onto the ground with all the force of the dragon they battle now. Paralyze, screams the Fade --

She whirls back, and the corps of mages falls back in line behind her. "Hold!" she screams, her voice lost in the crackling of the tempest, but they hear her, somehow, and hold the formation. Glyphs all round, pure circles barely touching one another, laid flat, a chain to trip the darkspawn. "Well-thought!" shouts a breathless enchanter beside her; she can scarcely pause to recognize his face.

The sky is drenched red above them. Purple fire, snapping lightning, and the hazy air seems to flash all the colors of a bruise. The stretched and scabbed faces of the darkspawn waver until they come into sharp focus, screaming apparitions that can rend, tear, shout, scream, tear.

She lashes them with fire. She lashes them with ice. The lyrium runs through her, leaves her shaking. They don't stop coming. Ahead of her Zevran's blades dance. Ahead of her Alistair's sword sings. Somewhere another mage, delicate and unarmored, hits the earth hard, and she trembles with the aftershock.

 2. [_ashes of the wake; lamb of god_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPf8BR7YYkw)

In the tunnels we seek death. This is known; what isn't known is the sweet strange glory of it. You refine your skills in those tunnels, and those dwarves playing politics back home, poisoning each other and sleeping with their rivals' sisters, they have no idea how the Stone calls a man to fight. But here in the Deep Roads, we know. The axe rises, and no light shines on its point as it slices down into their twisted flesh. The maul smashes out, and you feel the laugh twisting up through your vocal cords like gnarled roots, like the spider scars that twist across the faces and limbs of those dwarves not lucky enough yet to find their deaths. We see our own faces in those darkspawn visages, you see.

The taint that shudders the blood of the poor bastards lost here, it's wretched and sickly-smelling, but that too is fuel for the axe, for the glittering red rage of our lost souls. We march and we don't miss our step. We swing our weapons above our heads. We laugh, all of us, together now in the final ditch, and we see our deaths in the faces of the creatures we battle; our own faces, twisted in the rictus of death, scabbed over by the tainted blood of our victims.

We're not all so different, we from them and they from us.

 3. [_love is a losing game; amy winehouse_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q1pDQzTW6c)

When I came awake, the moon was high, stars glittering fixedly through the window. But he was still awake, and I, curled on his shoulder, picked up my head a little. Moonlight rested easy on him, a calm and graceful silver wash across his delicate features, and he chuckled, turning his head to take a breath of the scent of my hair. "Go back to sleep, Rinna," he said softly.

"Why don't you?" I asked.

"Oh, I do not need much sleep," he said distantly. His hand came up to play in my hair, but I frowned, and kissed the black swooping line of his tattoo that so cradled his high cheekbone.

"You ought to sleep. It's been a long day," I protested.

"Yes, and longer if you complain to me," he said, a little sharply. "So. Back to sleep with you."

So much for him opening up to me, I thought. But it _had _been a long day and he had quite thoroughly worn me out, to be honest, so I let it go, and lay my head on his naked shoulder once more. I pressed a quiet little kiss to the warm skin in apology, and as if in acceptance, he smoothed back my hair.

His profile was so sharp and clean against the moon, I thought.

 4. [_across the nation (RAW); the union underground_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-SZhFvx0Rs)

I felt his solid presence at my back, his low laugh. "Of course I am yours," he said.

They pressed close, a tight circle closing in around our knot of solid dwarven armor and weaponry. I daresay he felt my shaking, though I exhaled, a puff of faint hauteur. "Of course you are," I scoffed. "Now go!"

We fell on them, and in my fear I was ravenous, each whirl of steel and clash of arms a point and counterpoint, a strike for my dead elder brother, a promise for the once and future bloodline. A vow to my second. Gorim was laughing, battle-high, and I too smiled with exhilaration through my clenched teeth.

 5. _[oh! Heaven; TOKIO](http://www.animelyrics.com/jpop/tokio/ohheaven.htm)_ (I can't find it on YouTube, but that's the song. ._.;)

Marjolaine couldn't help but smile at her young apprentice's energy. Leliana was at her best like this, practicing the careful and precise forms of her dance. At the end of it, when her sharp little daggers whipped out of her sleeves and she pretended to take down an enemy in two quick kneeling strikes, Marjolaine actually clapped.

"Even if there weren't any death involved, I think you'd make a good Bard," Marjolaine chuckled from her prime vantage point on the chaise lounge.

Leiliana, straightening, brightened. "You think so?" she chirped, just the slightest pant to her voice as she caught her breath.

"Well, a dance like that... only a miserable cheapskate would fail to throw you the coins you so richly deserved."

Leiliana giggled. "And if they _did_ fail, well, I could just take the money, no?" She tossed up her dagger, caught it by the hilt, and grinned.

Marjolaine shook her head. "If the Duc of Bec-d'Ambès has seen your like before, I will eat your shoes," she said ruefully. "A handful, you are, my dear."

"You will not eat my shoes!" Leiliana's eyes widened, innocent and playful. "Do you know how much they cost?"

"The life of the lady from whose feet you took them?" Marjolaine said dryly.

"That might have been the better course," Leiliana said thoughtfully, and sheathed her dagger as an afterthought. "As it was -- twenty sovereigns!"

"Oh, my dear girl."

 6. _[Every Minute, Every Hour; 2gether](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxD_tCH6ub4)_

She'd never actually _wanted_ to be killed or anything. She wasn't, like, suicidal. But there was a danger in the sharp curve of his smile, in the gleam of his color-shifting eyes, that just called to her. She'd had everything in her life she'd ever wanted, save uncertainty and the unknown; she'd had every privilege of wealth and rank, and not a dash of adventure, not even the barest splash of daring and derring-do. She was so bloody insulated by her doting, adoring, oppressive father that even opening the tower window to breathe the wind was a victory.

And it was on the wind that he'd come, wasn't it? Climbing to her like a prince out of legend, and changing her life. So she waited for him on this last night, biting her lip as she stared down at the vellum before her, and then with determination scrawled out poetry for him.

_Your hands pin me down  
Your tongue against my skin  
Your hot breath along my throat  
I pull you close to me  
And press you hard...._

Well, her mind was certainly rolling in the gutter tonight. She swallowed hard, her face flushing. His hands were so nimble and dextrous -- elves were known for that, for being good with their hands -- but she had never looked at any of her elven servants that way. Then again, he lacked a servile air with her. His laugh when it rang out was low and mocking or gentle and cruel, while the elves who served her never laughed at all.

_I press you hard to me_, she wrote, and shoved her pen aside. Her cheeks burned, and she bowed her head, warming her still, cool hands between her thighs.

 7. _[X-Ecutioner Style; Linkin Park](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VHObJ1h26E)_ &amp; _[Song for the Dead; Tallywood String Quartet](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r_AGoFAD7Q)_

Her face swam before him. Cullen wanted to cry as his hands reached out for her again, helplessly. How many times now had he seen her before him, the slender elven beauty of her, the trace of her immortal ancestors lending her a sort of shimmering glow, or was that the mantle of the Fade upon her, that haunting aura --

The aura of the damned, he thought desperately. The mark of those mages who had sought to overtake the Maker's throne, who tracked sin into the Maker's Palace like dogs--

She had lips shaped for kissing, warm and soft. He held her close, he who had never held anyone like that before, he, obedient Chantry son, and she melted into him wordlessly. A soft sigh -- it nearly undid him, from her.

And then she wisped away in his arms.

And he was holding nothing. He staggered with the lack and the cold.

In his arms there was a corpse, dessicated, pale stringy hair and slimy skin. He shouted and recoiled, throwing the body away from himself. That dead thing had nothing of her charm, nothing of her glow, nothing of her smile--

In his arms was a darkspawn, ugly and corroded, and her hand at the small of his back -- her small, small hand that had lain so gently against that curve -- it was a darkspawn dagger, and it cleaved his spine in two, spread the taint through his organs, through his muscle and tissue --

No, no, bring her back. He choked on his cry. There she was again just as he had seen her after the Harrowing, proud and flushed, her gaze calm now, for she had faced the gauntlet and survived. She turned to him, opening her mouth to speak --

His sword jutted from between her ribs. Her gray eyes stared at him, betrayed and disbelieving. A trickle of blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, and she fell sideways, spasming around the blade, a torrent of blood leaving her lips, those lips that were shaped for kissing, for pleading.

He held her in his arms again, and wept, despising himself for how much he loved her.

 8. _[雨のMelody; KinKi Kids](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OBOAuuu7gs)_

By the campfire, Zevran's face was as smooth and calm as it ever was. When he looked at me, his eyes caught that firelight, their uncertain color burnished to a haunting amber in his sun-tanned face. "What is it?" he asked, having caught me looking. A mischevious smile quirked his lips. "Don't tell me something in your tent needs assassinating again."

But none of the humor in his smile was echoed in his changeable eyes, and I shook my head wordlessly, reaching out instead to twirl a lock of his hair between my fingers.

I hadn't intended anything of it, but he glanced away beneath that tender, thoughtless touch, stiffening a little, his shoulders hunching. He laughed quietly under his breath, and gently pushed my hand back. When I looked again, he had smoothed that lock back into place, as though I'd never touched it.

 9. [_Eva; ORGY_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VYVQ6ObhTM)

I suppose it was a great scandal in the Tower, although I wouldn't know, because they locked me away as soon as it became known. I had my own private quarters for the duration, which was quite nice. Still I would not tell them who had done it, and I think they despaired of me and my stubbornness.

All good and well. Because they would have the final prize, I thought bitterly, and ran my hands along the round curve of my belly. I knew they would not let me keep the child, would not let me pass the curse of magic to an innocent. Even if -- especially if -- the child was not a mage, I could not be permitted to keep it.

I felt the child's heartbeat fluttering in tandem with mine. I felt it kick inside me, and I shut my eyes, from nowhere a surge of hot tears pressing beneath my eyelids, leaking down past my temples to run into my hair. I exhaled shakily.

No, I would not give up who the father was. And perhaps in the future we would do this thing again, I thought. Perhaps once this child was born and taken from my sight, I would lay with him again and we would make another child. And the Chantry would take that one away, too. But for nine months I would pin a different future to my dreaming, and imagine that the child had my eyes and my affinity with the Fade, and his grave intelligence, his strong sure hands -- imagine that my child was my own to raise with pride, to elevate in morals past the strictures of the Chantry --

Was it so bad, to want his child?

Inside me, that child turned. I said nothing, staring up at the ceiling, but thought to it, child, I love you. You have your mother's love, child. For now.

 10. [_The Becoming; Nine Inch Nails_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMKUFs_TcUk)

Down in that thick brown darkness, Branka held to one thought, and it became the compass of her entire soul --

The Anvil. For she was a Paragon too, and if she had to snatch it from the Paragon who had crafted it, fine then. She would sacrifice whosoever she had to on the altar of that Anvil: Hespith, who had done anything her Paragon had asked of her; Oghren, that worthless drunken wretch; the entire stupid Assembly that had foisted that unwelcome elevation on her. All the people of her newly noble House if she had to.

Because in the end they didn't matter, not if they stood in her way. If they had named her Paragon, then Paragon she would be. Branka knew what was needed to save her people -- to save the whole damned world -- and as she breathed the darkspawn taint that hung in the air like ragged, musty curtains, her certainty only sharpened.

Hespith began to change, twitching and wretched, a shallow memory of the strong captain she had once been, and Branka cast her ruthlessly aside. Her honor guard fell away to the darkspawn one by one; like patches and scabs they fell away, and she was like a new pink thing without them, fresh and relentless. Reborn in the Stone, she knew her purpose.

To Caridin; to the Anvil; to the glory of the Ancestors; to save them all.

Hespith whimpered in her memory, and in her memory there was the faint stench of booze, and before her, the Anvil, she saw it, she swore. She swore, Branka swore she saw it, close enough to touch -- and she pressed on -- she pressed on.

 11. [_Polyamorous (acoustic); Breaking Benjamin _](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fniQYGAzabU)

"For an elf, you're not really bad at this whole assassination thing, you know," Taliesin said with that great reckless skipping laugh he had.

Zevran straightened up and shot him a frown, wiping his blades off fastidiously. "'For an elf?'" he echoed dryly.

"Oh come now, like you've never heard that," Taliesin snorted. He wiped the blood off his fingers with a corner of the victim's bedsheet and dropped the sheet contemptuously upon the body. His inscrutable eyes flashed. "Don't tell me that offended you."

"Well, I would say I am good at it _because_ I am an elf," Zevran said with a smirk. "My people are stealthy and devious, you know."

"Oh yes. I do know," Taliesin said, and swaggered forward, pulling Zevran in by the waist, quite ruthlessly. "Fast, and quiet--"

"We can be," said Zevran with cocked brow, and Taliesin kissed him, hard and excited. True to his word, Zevran was quiet. Rinna was quiet, he thought as Taliesin kissed him; he wondered if Taliesin had kissed her too, if she was as quiet with him. Taliesin pressed him back until his shoulderblades touched the wall, and Zevran tilted up his head and drank his kiss like the bitter dregs, in silence.


End file.
